Prostate Cancer Risk Cut by Drinking Coffee, Harvard Study Finds

May 17 (Bloomberg) -- Drinking coffee, regular or
decaffeinated, may reduce the risk of prostate cancer, according
to a study by Harvard University researchers.

The study found that men who consumed six or more cups of
coffee a day had a 60 percent lower risk of developing deadly
metastatic prostate cancer and a 20 percent reduced risk of
developing any form of the disease. One to three cups cut the
risk of lethal prostate cancer by 30 percent. The findings,
published today in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute,
suggest non-caffeine elements in coffee may provide the benefit.

Prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death
in U.S. men and affects one in six men during their lifetime,
according to the American Cancer Society. Researchers from
Harvard’s School of Public Health said they chose to study
coffee because research has shown it’s a source of antioxidants,
which may be useful in reducing prostate cancer risk.

“What we’re discovering is there are potentially
modifiable lifestyle factors that men can do to lower their risk
of lethal prostate cancer,” said Lorelei Mucci, an associate
professor of epidemiology at Harvard University School of Public
Health in Boston and the study’s senior author, in a May 13
telephone interview. “It doesn’t seem like caffeine is the
component of coffee that’s associated with this lower risk.”

Coffee has been linked in studies to a lower risk of
Parkinson’s disease, type 2 diabetes, liver cancer, cirrhosis
and gallstone disease, the authors said. It also contains
compounds that can reduce inflammation and regulate insulin.

Men’s Health Study

The researchers looked at the records of 47,911 U.S. men in
the Health Professionals Follow-Up study who reported how much
coffee they drank every four years from 1986 to 2008. The Health
Professionals Follow-Up Study, sponsored by Harvard and started
in 1986, is designed to evaluate men’s health by relating
nutritional factors to serious illness such as cancer and heart
disease. Among the 5,035 cases of prostate cancer reported in
the study, 642 were cases in which the cancer was fatal or
spread beyond the prostate.

Recent studies also suggest coffee may have harmful effects.
One by Belgium researchers earlier this month found it may
increase the risk of deadly strokes in people with brain
aneurysms. A British study last year found an association
between the caffeine in coffee and miscarriages and stillbirths
later in pregnancy.

“The wrong take-home message is drink more coffee and you
won’t get prostate cancer,” said Ian Thompson, director of the
Cancer Therapy & Research Center and a professor in the
Department of Urology at the University of Texas Health Science
Center at San Antonio. Similar studies finding links between
reduced prostate cancer risk and vitamin E or selenium haven’t
panned out, he said.

More Studies Needed

“It’s an interesting observation,” Thompson said in a May
16 interview. “The proper result for this would be for folks in
the drug discovery business to look at coffee to see if there
may be something drugable.”

The authors said they are planning more studies to
understand what in coffee may actually lower the risk of lethal
prostate cancer.

Today’s study was funded in part by the U.S. National
Institutes of Health and the Prostate Cancer Foundation.